Nodding violet spikes with the flowers all down one side, so the stem arches over at the tip; narrow shiny leaves and a sweet scent
Bluebell — the native Hyacinthoides non-scripta.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Bluebell
Flowers mid-April to late May
Hyacinthoides non-scripta — Asparagaceae
The native British bluebell is a bulbous perennial of ancient woodland whose one-sided, nodding spikes of scented violet-blue bells carpet the floor before the canopy closes. Britain holds about half of the world's population, and Plantlife's public vote made it the nation's favourite wildflower. Its chief threat is not picking but hybridisation with the Spanish bluebell that has escaped from gardens.
How to spot them
- ▸Flowers hang down one side only, so the whole stem arches over at the tip like a shepherd's crook
- ▸Narrow leaves about 1–1.5 cm wide, strap-shaped and shiny, all rising from the bulb
- ▸Creamy-white pollen inside; petal tips curl right back on themselves
- ▸Strongly and sweetly scented — the Spanish plant has no scent at all
- ▸An ancient-woodland indicator, often growing with wood anemone and dog's mercury
How to know it
The garden escape that swamps it has upright stems, flowers all round them, leaves about 3 cm wide, blue pollen and no scent
That is the Spanish bluebell, Hyacinthoides hispanica, which hybridises with the native bluebell.
Britain holds roughly half the world's population of this ancient-woodland bulb, voted the nation's favourite wildflower in a Plantlife poll
Bluebell.
Added to Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1998, making trade in wild-collected bulbs and seed illegal
Bluebell — digging up the bulbs was already illegal without the landowner's permission.
Its sticky bulb sap was used to glue feathers onto arrow shafts in the Middle Ages and to stiffen ruffs in Tudor times
Bluebell.
The specific epithet means 'unlettered' — a note that this is not the hyacinth of Greek myth, whose petals bore Apollo's cry of grief
Hyacinthoides non-scripta: non-scripta = not written on.
Folklore says that hearing these flowers ring summons a bad fairy, and that picking them leaves you led astray in the wood for ever
Bluebell — also called Granfer Griggles and crow's toes.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Asparagaceae (formerly placed in Liliaceae or Hyacinthaceae); once called Endymion non-scriptus and Scilla non-scripta
- •Plantlife puts about half the world's population in Britain, and reports a survey in which around one in six bluebells in broad-leaved woodland was Spanish rather than native
- •The hybrid is Hyacinthoides × massartiana; it is fertile, which is why it spreads through native colonies
- •non-scripta distinguishes it from the classical hyacinth, on whose petals Apollo was said to have written AI AI, 'alas'
- •Bulbs and sap are poisonous, containing glycosides; the sap was nonetheless used as a glue and a starch
- •Protected in the UK under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and listed on Schedule 8 since 1998
- •Trampling is a real danger: a crushed leaf cannot photosynthesise, and the bulb may take years to recover
- •The 'Scottish bluebell' is a different plant altogether — the harebell, Campanula rotundifolia
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- Woodland Trust — Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
- Plantlife — Bluebell
- The Wildlife Trusts — Spanish or native bluebell?